What is Ghost?

Ghost is a new technology which, when combined with Flowcode, provides a revolutionary way of debugging electronic systems.

Ghost technology provides a real time log of the status of all the pins on the microcontroller whilst a Flowcode program is running on the device. Ghost data can be
viewed on the Flowcode Softscope at the same time as the flow chart simulation. We call this ‘In-Circuit-Test’. You can run, pause, and step through, your program
and view Ghost data at the same time and view variables, registers and other memory locations. We call this ‘In-Circuit-Debug’

When this data is combined with the PC-side processing capabilities of Flowcode it provides a very powerful debugging and learning tool. As an example of this the 5 steps below
show how ICT works to collect a stream of GPS digital data gathered from the E-blocks system and processed into layers of meaningful information to help the design
process.

This saves huge amounts of development time - whether you are working at a pin level and getting your first program to work, or whether you are an advanced user wanting to
perform a sanity check to make sure communications baud rates are set at the correct speed.

Both analogue and digital data is gathered through Ghost ICT and displayed on the Flowcode Softscope. For communications busses decoding overlays for UART, SPI, and I2C are
available. Ghost data can also be passed to simulation/SCADA components in Flowcode to provide Human Machine Interface style debug features.

Flowcode screen showing real time digital and analogue in circuit test (ICT) data being shown via the data recorder and oscilloscope windows. The data recorder showing data over a
period of time and the oscilloscope showing repeating waveforms using edge triggering.

How does Ghost work?

Ghost is a unique piece of technology, the entire system works in real time as ghost monitors all the I/O on the target chip and streams that data directly into Flowcode via
USB, below is a diagram explaining how the system works.

For a much more detailed description of how ghost works, please see this Blog article by the creator of Ghost, Ben Rowland: Ghost Blog Post

How In-Circuit Debugging (ICD) works

How In-Circuit Test (ICT) works

What Hardware can I use with Ghost

EB006 v9 Multiprogrammer Board

To start using Ghost you will need the brand new EB006 version 9 board from Matrix. This board contains the Ghost chip which will allow you to both program your devices
and monitor their I/O using the Ghost technology.

You can purchase the EB006 version 9 board from here on the Matrix website:

BL0080 PIC Multiprogrammer board

As part of the new Eblocks 2 range, the BL0080 will allow you to use Ghost technology. This board programs 8-bit PIC microcontrollers by connecting to a PC and programming
via USB to provide a combined powerful microcontroller and debugging platform.